Archaeology, Ethnology & Anthropology of Eurasia 47 (1) 2019   DOI: 10.17746/1563-0110.2019.47.1.033-041

Annotation:  The Loess-Paleosol Sequence at the Krasnogorskoye Section, the Low-Hill Zone of the Northeastern Alt The Early Neolithic Complex on the Tartas-1 Site: Results of the AMS Radiocarbon Dating Water and Cosmology in the Stone Age of Northeastern Europe Turning Points in Horse Breeding in the Eurasian Steppes and the Near East The Study of Middle Bronze Age Interments at Khanghah Gilavan: Tentative Results The Petrovka Bronze Age Sites: Issues in Taxonomy and Chronology A Comparative Study of the Layout of Bronze Age Fortifi ed Settlements in the Southern Urals (3rd to Early Iron Age Pyramidal Kurgans in Western Siberia The Xiongnu Gold from Noin-Ula (Mongolia) Geophysical Studies at the Horogoru Fortifi ed Settlement in South Korea Medieval Sites of Tara Region, the Irtysh Basin: Origin, Chronology, Cultural and Ethnic Attribution A Central Asian Helmet from the Northern Kazakhstan Regional Museum The 18th-Century Udmurt Women’s Outfi ts Depicted in J.P. Falk’s Book: Interpretation and Attributio Wearing Folk Costumes as a Mimetic Practice in Russian Ethnographic Field Studies Types of Winter Clothing Worn by Descendants of the Russian Pioneers in Siberia (Late 19th to Early Long-Bone Growth in the Bronze Age Skeletal Population of Gonur-Depe, Turkmenistan   

Turning Points in Horse Breeding
in the Eurasian Steppes and the Near East

V.B. Kovalevskaya

Institute of Archaeology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Dm. Ulyanova 19, Moscow, 117036, Russia

This article discusses the pivotal points in horse domestication on the Eurasian steppes and the Near East in the 5th to 2nd millennia BC, from the initial time and place of the domestication of horses to the emergence of various types of horse harnesses. On the basis of 5th and 4th millennia BC Eurasian horse-headed scepters, the means for handling horses are reconstructed. Six types of head harnesses are described, and their evolution is traced from simple muzzles (type I) and more complex ones (types 2 and 3) to those supplemented with drop nosebands (type 4) and snaffle (type 5) and non-snaffle bridles (type 6). A unique 3rd millennium BC document—an Elamite clay tablet from Susa, listing horse farms, has made it possible to assess the structure of each farm, and evaluate the size of the domestic horse population in Elam. Training techniques of chariot horses were described by the “master horse trainer Kikkuli of Mitanni”. These techniques were further developed by the proto-Indo-Aryans on the Eurasian steppes in the early 2nd millennium BC, and became known to the Hittites and Assyrians via the Mitanni horse breeders. On the basis of the Rigveda, the type and exterior of those swift horses with which the Indo-Aryans spread over Asia are characterized.

Keywords: Horse breeding, domestication, horse harness, Eurasian steppes, Near East, 5th to 2nd millennia BC.